Category: Health and Wellness

Mediation has become much more popular and mainstream in the last few years and for that I am truly grateful! I always struggled to meditate during shavasana during my yoga practice and often found my mind wandering. I’ve always wanted to get better at this and at the recommendation of a dear friend, I downloaded a guided meditation app on my phone to help my practice.

I now practice everyday for 10-15 minutes, usually before bed. The guided meditation is great because it always helps brings my mind back to the present moment with his gentle voice and suggestions. I will admit I still struggle with wandering thoughts, but practicing for a short period each day is definitely improving my practice and my resilience.

I’ve only been using the app for about three weeks but I am thoroughly enjoying it and look forward to using it each night! I highly recommend guided meditation if you’re anything like me and find complete silence too challenging for a beginner. The app I used is called HeadSpace but there are many other apps out there to try as well! It you give it a try, please let me know what you think! I plan to write a follow up post in a few months to update everyone on my progress.

For many years, I have incorporated juicing into my diet to to nourish my body and mind with healthy vegetables on the go. Juicing has become a popular trend and for very good reason! Studies show that only 1/3 of Americans eat more than 3 vegetables a day and 2 or more fruits per day. Yikes! Juicing, however, can help even the healthiest of us consume the extra vitamins and nutrients from plants our bodies so desperately need in a very convenient way.

There are many juice recipes you can find on the internet, but below are the staples I include in every juice as my base. I then sometimes add one or two additional vegetables to change the flavor or drink it as is for a healthy afternoon snack.

I make my juices with 90-95% vegetables and 5-10% fruit to limit the sugar content. Even though sugar in fruit is considered natural, it’s still important not to have too much or your blood sugar levels will be out of balance which can lead to headaches, dizziness, and dehydration.

I recommend starting with a lot of leafy greens to your juices for an extra nutrient punch – my favorites are a large handful of kale, romaine, chard, or spinach.

Many nutritionists swear by the benefits of carrots, so I always add one large carrot to my juice.

Lemon and ginger both have amazing detoxification properties! I add half a lemon and a 1 inch piece of ginger to my juice.

Cucumber and celery lend a mild taste and lots of great antioxidants so I add half of a cucumber and 3 stalks of celery.

Lastly, I add one apple for a bit of sweetness, otherwise you might find the juice to be quite bitter.

And that, my friends, is my daily juicing base! I love this on its own or with beets, tomato, red cabbage, orange, or pear.

I truly believe that by incorporating even one vegetable packed juice into your diet a week, one can change their health for the better. After you’ve made that a habit, try drinking more freshly pressed juice every week!

There may finally be a reason to look forward to Monday mornings at the office!

Based on recent trends and developments in building standards, workplaces may soon be becoming more conducive to supporting the health and wellness of employees.The WELL Building Standard is the first building standard that focuses on combining work with wellness in an effort to support the health of employees that spend their time in the building.

Happily, this building standard has started to attract the attention of even the most financially conservative of companies given that an increase in employee wellness has been shown to increase a company’s success through greater productivity and employee morale. In practice, a building with WELL Certification (in that it complies with the WELL Building Standard) would ensure natural light rather than electric lighting, higher internal air quality, excellent temperature control, and comfortable acoustics, including through the use of white noise machines to reduce background noise.

Studies have shown that employees in such an environment are more alert, enjoy better sleep, feel less stress and distraction, and are less likely to catch colds or suffer from other illnesses.Other features include ergonomic sit-stand desks and filtered water hydration stations interspersed throughout the workplace to encourage better hydration.

The universal goal is to create an environmental that supports healthier behavior in employees.When you consider that most employees spend more than half of their waking hours in an office, it’s odd that most office spaces haven’t been designed with the health and wellness of employees front of mind. It’s so refreshing to see modern workplaces evolving to better support health and wellness!

I recently read an interesting article in Vogue about Michelle Obama and her emphasis on always putting health and wellness first. She shared some great thoughts!

As the First Lady says, women need to do a “better job of putting themselves higher on their own ‘to-do’ list.” In particular, women “need to keep an eye on their physical and mental health, because if we’re scurrying to and from appointments and errands, we don’t have a lot of time to take care of ourselves”.

Michelle Obama also recognizes that exercise has benefits beyond keeping your body in shape – it keeps the mind healthy as well. As the First Lady says, “exercise is really important to me—it’s therapeutic.” “So if I’m ever feeling tense or stressed or like I’m about to have a meltdown, I’ll put on my iPod and head to the gym or out on a bike ride along Lake Michigan with the girls.”

The First Lady also views health as “multifaceted”. In her words, “it’s physical, it’s internal, it’s my diet and my emotional state—it’s all tied in together.” Put another way, good health depends on keeping both the mind and body and balance.

It’s great to see such excellent health and wellness philosophies coming from the First Lady! What an excellent role model for new generations of women and girls.